And when all else fails, it fails
by JessU8902
Summary: Post season 7. Jess gets a call to be Luke's best man, but he struggles to think of spending time with her, all they've ever done is break each other. Rated M because well, it's Jess.


Um.. disclaimer: I don't own anyone. I quote some ataris as well.. I don't own them either..I sortof wish I owned Jess b/c he's like, perfect.. but alas.. be honest. It's my first and thanks..

Luke's staring at him now. Uncomfortable. He's expecting an answer.

Best man.

Should be a no-brainer.

An honor.

As much as Jess has put him through, such a pain in his ass, Luke still wants him to be his best man as he (finally) marries the girl he's wanted, for (what?) a hundred years or so?? Jess doesn't even know how long…

But to be honest, he wants to say no.

He wants to skip the whole thing and get drunk and feel sorry for himself.

She will be there. And it's too soon.

Luke shifts, regretting his request?

"Suck it up," Jess thinks, and mentally slaps himself, (hard.)

Smiles crookedly. "Of course.."

Luke's grinning big, then gets serious.. "listen.. I know you and-"

"Not important." Jess cuts in , "this is great, so great for you.. And um.. So bigger than all that," he waves it away. "Christ, I can't believe you even asked, it's a damn honor."

And then they man-hug, awkward and back-slappy, and Luke's giving him dates and times and names and places and it's turning out to be a nearly week long thing;

Gilmore style.

Jess smirks. Then wonders if Rory would want a week long wedding.

Then he's feeling sick.

and remembers there will be no marrying Rory.

He isn't there, really, for the niceties of the rest of the conversation but Luke tries not to notice and gives him a fatherly shoulder pat before Jess closes the door behind him.

Jess wonders how are they supposed to stay in the same room for five fucking minutes, seconds,, let alone the whole traditional maid of honor slash best man shit, walking, hosting, dancing (God he hated dancing)

Christ, he needed a cigarette.

Fumbling through a drawer, for matches, he smells her and sees some abandoned tube of lip gloss. His eyes are blurring, burning, leaking, he glances at the mirror.

"Fuck this."

he proceeds to smash that mirror.

_A new dawn broke this morning  
Tears were raining in this room  
As pure as holy water  
Reflecting images of you_

"I love you."

She's smiling beneath him.

"Liar." he breathes, still recovering. Moving off her gently and she lays her head on his chest.

"Why do you always say I'm lying?" she murmurs,

and he wonders for a second if she actually believes him when he says it.

"Because, this is usually around the part where you leave." He half jokes.

She sits up, and doesn't look at him, but drags the sheet away leaving him uncovered.

He pulls on something and pads to the bathroom door.

"Ror,," he knocks.

She's crying.

"Shit."

The door flies open and she's dressed, disheveled.

"You're right." she barks.

The floor is becoming unstable beneath him because he knows what's coming next.

He's caged her too long.

Now he's pushed her too far.

She stares at him. She doesn't need him anymore. She never did, he concedes; she needed someone to hold onto her when she needed so and someone inside her when she needed that too. Maybe carry on a conversation about books, or movies, or well,, not TV, but oh shit she didn't need Him.

Her eyes were so blue that day. Like ice.

Frigid.

"I'm going." She says.

Wavering. What's she waiting for? He looks at her and he's so fucking tired then.

"You think that's what you want." He made it a statement but it was meant to be a question.

"_I fucking love you!" _His brain screams

"I do." She says flatly.

"There's the door." He gestures.

She shakes her head feebly and looks at him a bit longer. What's in her eyes now? Is she sad?

She's probably just disappointed again. That's all he did, fucking disappoint her.

Story of his shortish life.

"_Don't go. Don't go. Don't go. Don't go., please please."_His brain is wailing. Desperate, and he's scared it will give him away, so he turns and manages back to the bedroom where he can smell her; them..

And shuts the door.  
He leans on it breathing hard. He's quiet and he finally hears her drop the key into the bowl by the front door and the lock clicks and her footsteps muffled on the stairs and he's sure she's had enough time to be out the building and halfway down the block and he sees red.

_Smash something smash something, smash it like me like she smashed me she smashed me again_,

and the lamp is closest.

He's bleeding, so he lights a cigarette and hates her for what she's made him.

_And I failed you? Well, you failed me too._

He arrives in Stars Hollow and realizes it's been a long time. Asshole Porsche guy, Same area. He remembers yelling at her. At Her. To get it together, get back to Yale.

He tries to slink into the diner, but there's the damn bell. Luke and Lorelai are arguing about something, coffee or donuts or Star Trek or whatever, it's like foreplay and he cringes.

He turns and there she is. Reading, and then he's seventeen and wants to rush over and kiss her.

Be hers.

He wants to throw up.

The first time it happens he's careful with her. Like she's glass and she'll shatter if he doesn't handle her with the greatest of care.

When she falls over the edge he's sure she loves him and when he does he's sure he's seen God and he doesn't even believe in God.

"That was…" She breathes.

…The beginning of the end. He thinks bitterly. And then she's seen him. He wonders what she's thinking. Her cheeks are flushed and she's so fucking beautiful and he wants to put his head on her lap and beg her to forgive him.

_Weak weak weak. _

He puts on his blank face. Patented. And waves a careless greeting. Then goes to Luke who welcomes him. (happily?)

Lorelai seems guarded but glad enough to see him. For Luke's sake, he supposes. The air is weird and again he needs a cigarette so he excuses himself upstairs, ready to unpack before he has a chance to change his mind and run again.

10 minutes. He checks his watch and starts the countdown to when he can escape her. Is this being an adult? He lights a cigarette.

It hurts more than he thought it would.

The next time is nearly 2 months later and she's half drunk when she shows up at his door and making little small talk before kissing him roughly and climbing into his lap. He lets her take the lead and when it's over he's happy to hold her but something's tugging at his gut. He holds onto her all night and doesn't sleep, and in the morning he wants to take her for breakfast but she can't be late for work.

She promises to call him but she doesn't.

Luke knocks. Jess answers. Luke rambles that he's glad Jess came and he knows it's tough to see her. He appreciates it. Jess says it's no big deal, and Luke doesn't believe him. He lets him be tough, and lets him know that the first happy wedding event will be that evening. At the diner, and it's all since that's where the lovebirds met, and Jess says he's there to help and tries to smile but he sucks at it and just closes the door as politely as he can. Luke tries not to worry too much about him. Jess breathes and smokes until it's time to go down and face it.

She glances at him from time to time while they decorate. He never makes eye contact but he sees her. They are both so careful not to be in the same area. Not sharing balloon hanging or confetti distribution. Jess can't believe Lorelai talked Luke into all this horseshit but every now and then he catches them smiling like idiots and he feels a twinge of happiness for them.

The third time, she lets him take her to dinner but she's not herself, looking around a lot touching her hair and hands and he asks her if she's nervous, and she laughs and says no, that she barely just has any time for dinner but later she has time to let him make her cry out for him and she leaves marks on his back that don't heal for a week.

He starts to get the idea.

A month goes by and she doesn't return his calls.

The party is tolerable and Miss Patty tells him she's read his books and tries to weasel out of him if any of them were about _her. _He smiles a no and shakes his head but he knows she doesn't believe him. Babette manages to pinch his ass twice and he gets to see Rory smile more than once. He drinks too much champagne and has a headache the next morning. He wants her to talk to him but he won't talk to her.

"So we're fucking."

He states after the next time she leaves him breathless and she's getting dressed, not even letting him watch her sleep. She looks embarrassed,

"No," she fumbles. "I want more than that."

But then she's at the door and he's angry and he pulls her back down to him.

She doesn't leave til much later and this time they both have marks.

"I don't know what this is." She says as she shuts his door.

"But. I love you."

He smokes 2 packs of cigarettes and doesn't sleep.

Luke has to bang on his door to get him conscious and he stumbles down the stairs and forgets he can't smoke inside.  
"Those are so bad for you." She's beside him and he can smell her shampoo. She's making an effort..

"So are you." He says and then he wants to just basically die because her eyes well up and she's gone as silently as she was there.

He moves outside and smokes 3 cigarettes, tries to breathe.

When he comes back in Luke tells him tonight will be dinner at Lorelai's parents' house and no he absolutely cannot make Luke go deal with it alone. Best man duty. Jess points out that Luke won't be alone, that he has his Fiancée to tag along.

Luke glares.

Jess gives in.

She doesn't call again for 6 weeks and when she does he asks her to go out with him on a real date. She doesn't.

After the non-date, which consists of more of what it is they do best as of late.. she tells him she loves him again and that she'll be gone a month for work.

"You could call me," He snaps.

She softens, and for a minute she's his Rory again. She promises when she gets back they'll go out and do something together "fun."

"Whatever." He blows a smoke ring.

The dinner is miserable of course. There are meaningful looks shot Luke's and Jess' way enough. He wants to punch something; thinks of the goose. Then he's 17 _again, _and he's seeing her face as he stalks out of their big, rich house. He wants to find the goose and kill it.

He thinks he could take it now.

She keeps her promise and they go to a bookstore in Philadelphia, one that he knows she'll love. They talk about the things they can talk about easily and they argue about Hemingway. She tells him she's happy that Philly agrees with him and later they rent a movie and make love on the couch and he thinks they may be making progress.

The next morning she asks if she can stay with him awhile. He's so happy he forgets to ask questions and kisses her instead.

2 weeks later he starts calling her his girlfriend.

They have exactly one fight when she admits that for a good chunk of their beginning she was still seeing Logan but that it's over and she's his. Just his.

He tries to trust her.  
He finishes his fourth book and starts thinking about crazy shit like houses and babies and waking up with her every day.

Like forever..

He can't sleep so he goes for a walk. Smoking and thinking of her.

He decides to visit the bridge but she's there.

He wants to run but she's spotted him and now she probably thinks it's fate or some bullshit like that.

He still walks over.

"You know I'm sorry." She draws a ragged breath and he's more angry than anything.  
"Sorry enough to leave." He says but he sits down next to her and remembers too much. Books and baskets and rain and he wishes he could be the guy from Eternal Sunshine who gets the girl erased from his memory.. How did that movie end, he wonders?

He was so drunk when he watched it.

"You think we could try again?" She sniffles. Those eyes.

And he kisses her. Like a damn moron.

Then she's up, and dragging him across town, kissing him, into poles and walls, trees, and into the diner and up the stairs, on the bed and she's unbuckling him and he's tearing away.

She's yelling at him isn't it what he wants?! And he's yelling back that he just wants her to leave.

And she does.

He smokes another cigarette and takes a shower so he doesn't have to smell her damn shampoo.

People in town saw them last night. They know, they saw them kissing and heard them fighting. She's puffy eyed at the diner and he's the fucking bad guy again.

She's spending less and less time at the apartment. She tells him one day that Luke proposed to her Mom. They're getting married.

She asks him what he thinks of marriage and he snorts a little, goes back to his book. She looks at him awhile and then makes some excuse to leave. She doesn't come back til the next day and he wonders if she's founds someone else.

He asks her so and she cries, he apologizes and they fall into bed.

He calls her a liar that day and she's gone. It's 3 months before Luke shows up and asks him to be in the wedding.

"You need to get it together."  
This is Lorelai, in his old room above the diner, she's by herself and she's telling him he can't do this to Rory again.

That they need to move on.

He's messing up the wedding.

"Get it together or go." She says quietly.  
Go.

He should.

Instead he says he didn't do anything to Rory and maybe she should talk to her instead of him.  
Lorelai says she has every day for 3 months and she's tired of the crying, broken down, broken hearted shell of a person that took away her daughter.

That _he _did that.

"She was with Logan for.." He sputters.

"She told you, and she chose you." She counters

"Yeah, did she? 'Cause it seemed to me all she wanted was laid." He snarls.

Lorelai slaps him hard across the face and he's kinodf sickly happy because he feels it. He must be smiling though because she's furious.

"You. Bastard. " she spits. "You let her get that close to you and you never even had the balls to lie and say you loved her."

He pales.

The room is spinning.

Then he's mentally filing through every second since the first night and she's saying she loves him and he's thinking it.

_Thinking it_.

Did he say it?

Of course..

No,

NO.

but she knew.

She had to know. He _Showed _her.

He wrote a fucking book for her..

Then he snorted when she mentioned marriage and he questioned her when she told him she loved him.

He sat..

no

_fell_.. down.

Lorelai is staring at him. Tears slipping silently down her cheeks.

Tears are burning down his.

"I love her." He chokes.

"Don't tell me." She says softly.

Then he's on autopilot, flying down the stairs across the town running like a goddamned idiot and he doesn't care. Nearly running over people, they're shouting at him and he's wishing he didn't smoke so fucking much. He's moving in slow motion and his lungs are burning. Then finally he's at her Mom's house and he's practically beating the door down and Luke answers and asks him what the hell his problem is, but he's past Luke and crying out for Rory, who comes downstairs looking scared of him.

Scared of him.

Of course she was.

She was never not his Rory, she was always there, she was scared,

and he was an idiot.

He drops down to his knees and she's really afraid now because he must look insane. Brown eyes wild.

"I love you." He whispers. Looking at the floor before he looks up to her and he's never been more afraid of anything in his life.

More afraid of this than dying.

She says nothing, but she's crying and he thinks she looks a lot like her mother when she cries.

"I love you, I love you, I love you, a fucking gazillion times I love you." he sobs,

And he's not very poetic when he's desperate and she's sobbing as well and on her knees in front of him. He's kissing her face and asking her to forgive him and she tastes like salt and strawberry lip gloss.

And she's nodding. And whispering the sweetest fucking word he's heard in his youngish life.  
"Yes."

And there is another week-long Gilmore wedding that year.


End file.
